Special Interests vs. Narrow Interests

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My special interests also seem to be narrow interests. If you want to know what they are, just look at my avatar.

I have been told my interests are very focused. My two main ones are animals (particularly cats) and tennis (both watching and playing). I am fortunate that many of my friends also have pets and a lot of them are cat lovers and that I can talk about my favorite players at the tennis center without being considered weird. I don't consider my interests narrow because, when I get interested in a specific country, I want to learn everything about it, especially about famous people from those countries.

My interest in Spain as a teenager led me to appreciate Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer now.

It also worked in reverse. An interest in Denis Istomin led me to research Russia, Uzbekistan, Orenburg and Tashkent. I would like to interview Denis one day and ask him what his life was like growing up in Tashkent as an ethnic Russian.

I don't know for sure the difference between them.I've always read especially the 2ndW.W so somewhat narrow.

I think the DSM refers to "narrowly-defined interests." Mine aren't particular narrow in scope, but I tend to focus narrowly on particular aspects of my interests, one at a time. Typically I'll be thinking or reading something and I'll become curious about some part of it and I'll start tracking down (usually on the Web these days) the answers to the questions that pop into my head, and that will lead to further curiosity about some of the aspects of what I dig up, and it will branch out into multiple topics. I don't many many of those topics into hobby-like interests, I'm usually done with them after an hour or so, but sometimes a thing will take root, especially if I can do anything practical with it, and then it will be more like an obsessional hobby. A lot of the things I have an interest in are somewhat eccentric, though not everything. I get the impression my taste in activities is more eclectic than it is for the typical Aspie, but I'm not sure of that.

Could be a case of outside view versus inside view. To a clinician, they're "narrow" interests. To us they're "special." For example, a pediatrician ticks the "narrow interests" box when he sees that the kid only ever talks about trains. The kid, meanwhile, is aware of all the depth, breadth and magic of the wonderful world of trains.